Guest post from Manish Dalal, Vice President, Verisign Naming Services, Asia-Pacific

Today, Verisign is excited to announce the General Registration Period for .コム – the .com you know, now in Japanese – during which anyone can register .コム domain names on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to availability and the applicable registry policies. The General Registration Period for .コム began at 00:00:00 UTC on June 13, 2016, following the Landrush Program Period.*

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Guest post from June Seo, Director, Verisign Naming Services Korea

Verisign is pleased to announce the launch of our phased rollout of .닷컴 and .닷넷, the localized versions of the .com and .net top-level domains (TLDs) in Hangul script for the Korean market. The Sunrise Period is open from May 16, 2016 through June 19, 2016 for .닷컴, the .com you know, now in Korean, and .닷넷, the evolution of .net for Korea.

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Guest Post from Manish Dalal, Vice President, Verisign Naming Services, Asia-Pacific

Today, the Landrush Program Period for .コム, the first IDN TLD from Verisign, opens for anyone to register .コム domain names on a first come, first served basis through June 12, 2016. The Landrush Program Period provides businesses and individuals with the opportunity to register .コム domain names before they become generally available to the public on June 13, 2016.

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Guest post from Manish Dalal, Vice President, Verisign Naming Services Asia 

Verisign launched its first IDN new gTLD, .コム – the .com you know, now in Japanese – on Dec. 9, 2015 at 12:00 a.m. UTC. We recently submitted updated TLD Startup Information for .コム to ICANN, extending the end date for the .コム Sunrise Period from Jan. 31, 2016, to March 14, 2016, and shifting the dates of the subsequent registration periods. ICANN recently confirmed the following updated registration periods for the .コム TLD*:

Sunrise Period: Dec. 9, 2015 – March 14, 2016

Priority Access Program Period: March 15 – May 15, 2016

Landrush Program Period: May 16 – June 12, 2016

General Registration Period: Start Date June 13, 2016

Trademark Claims Period: June 13 – Sept. 11, 2016

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Guest post from Manish Dalal, Vice President, Verisign Naming Services Asia

The composition of the Internet’s population continues to evolve toward a more localized Web. Asia has been leading the way forward as the populations in that region come online and begin creating and consuming content in their local languages. According to Internet World Stats, over 48 percent of all Internet users are located in Asia and, according to W3Techs, approximately 45 percent of all websites in the world are in a language other than English.

Still, navigation of the Internet through a URL is primarily in English. Therefore, by enabling more end users to navigate the Internet in scripts representing their native language, and giving more companies the ability to maintain a common brand identity across many scripts, Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) have the potential to make the Internet more accessible and thus more usable to end users around the world. This accessibility is why IDNs have generated considerable attention since Verisign introduced IDNs at the second-level in 2000.

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